World famous Ivy restaurant to open in Cambridge
Boost as Ivy brasserie wants to grow in city
Troia Restaurants Ltd, the company behind The Ivy in the West End, has submitted a change-of-use planning application to the city council to create a brasserie at 16 Trinity Street.
The grade II listed premises was previously home to fashion store Jaeger. Under its new guise it will have a capacity for 140 covers and could create up to 100 jobs.
The upper floors of the building are currently used for student accommodation and this will not change under the proposals.
The original Ivy restaurant in London’s West Street, near Cambridge Circus, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. It has been a popular haunt of the rich and famous for decades.
News of its arrival in Cambridge was welcomed by the business fraternity.
Ian Sandison, chairman of Cambridge BID, said: “We’re delighted to hear that The Ivy is due to open a restaurant in Cambridge as its presence will provide yet another reason for people to come and spend time in our beautiful city.
“Eateries are becoming increasingly important to high streets across the UK as shoppers seek to make their visit into an ‘experience’, so we are keen to see a diverse range of restaurants, bistros and cafés represented across the city.
“Our recent success in being named Britain’s healthiest retail centre in the HDH Vitality Index can only be further reinforced by The Ivy’s arrival.”
A spokesperson for the design company involved in the Cambridge project, We Make it Happen, Design and Build, in Sussex, explained the rationale behind the colours for the new brasserie exterior, saying: “All of the window frames are to be painted in Farrow and Ball smoke green. Branding and signage will be subtle and to the highest quality. Two carriage wall lights will provide illumination.”
A spokesman for the Ivy Collection said that the company was still in the planning application stage and that it would prefer not to comment at this stage.
If its planning application to Cambridge City Council is successful, the restaurant could be open seven days a week, offering a full service from breakfast to dinner.
The Ivy has restaurants in Chelsea, Soho, Covent Garden, Kensington, Marlow and Bristol.
The main London restaurant was handed a green plaque to mark its centenary. The unveiling, attended by a host of dignitaries, honours Abel Giandellini, who opened The Ivy as a modest café in 1917 on the ground floor of a house in West Street.
The current building was purpose-built on the same site for The Ivy in 1928, by which time the restaurant had achieved national fame.
By the outbreak of the Second World War, the restaurant was enjoying global success and attracting everyone from Hollywood stars to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and legendary composer Puccini.
The company is looking to open more brasseries across the country including Harrogate, Manchester and York as it strives to take its brand out of London.
Officers at the city council have recommended that the planning application be approved.
